Is Newt Scamander's beastly adventure a magical hit or miss?

The long anticipated Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens in cinemas this week and if you need a little cheering up - in the gloomy weather - this majestic slice of magic could do the trick.

For Harry Potter fans who hold JK Rowling's books close to their heart, and know every line from the films off by heart, Eddie Redmayne's Newt Scamander is your new hero.

The movie is set in the 1920s - decades before the boy wizard and his Hogwarts adventures - and the story follows magizoologist Newt on a whirlwind journey as he frantically attempts to retrieve his beasts after they escape from his magical suitcase.

But is he a worthy successor of The Boy Who Lived and will he keep the magic alive? Read our muggle review to find out if it's worth the watch.

The film is out in cinemas nationwide Friday, November 18.

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The pixie dust may have settled on Harry Potter's battle with Lord Voldemort, but author J.K. Rowling isn't ready to cast a vanishing spell on her world of warring wizards just yet.

Inspired by a textbook she wrote in 2001 to benefit Comic Relief, Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them is a rollicking spin-off set several decades before the escapades of the boy wizard, with a lightning bolt-shaped scar.

It's also the first film penned for the screen by Rowling and is a surprisingly bleak affair about tolerance, prejudice and integration.

"I know you have rather backwards laws about relations with non-magic people," British magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) tells an American counterpart.

Tensions between No-Majs (American term for Muggles) and spell-casting folk underpin every scene of director David Yates' visually sumptuous picture - the opening chapter of a five-film franchise that will continue until 2024.

A group called the Second Salemers - led by Mary Lou Barebone (Samantha Morton) and her adopted son Credence (Ezra Miller) - preach hell and damnation in 1926 New York, following a reign of terror by dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp).

Newt Scamander arrives in the Big Apple at the height of this paranoia, carrying an enchanted suitcase full of endangered critters.

Beasties go on the rampage and Newt attempts to recapture them with the help of Jacob, a former Auror called Porpentina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) and her mind-reading sister, Queenie (Alison Sudol).

Percival Graves (Colin Farrell), plays the Director of Magical Security, and is convinced that Newt's illegally imported creatures are responsible for a brutal attack - he declares war on the four fugitives.

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them reunites director Yates, who helmed the last four Harry Potter films, with other Hogwarts alumni, including editor Mark Day, production designer Stuart Craig and visual effects supervisors Tim Burke and Christian Manz.

The look and feel of the first movie is comfortingly familiar, including John Williams' iconic theme, which composer James Newton Howard appropriates for his score.

Redmayne is a charmingly ill-at-ease hero, whose dedication to creatures is similar to Hogwarts grounds keeper Hagrid.

The beasts are weird and wondrous - they include an emotionally needy woodland biped called a Bowtruckle and a long-snouted burrowing mammal called a Niffler, which hoards shiny things.

Set and costume design, embellished with digital trickery, are flawless and No-Maj Jacob speaks for all when he first glimpses behind the wizarding curtain."I don't think I'm dreaming," he tells himself. "I don't have the brains to make this up!"